Since the first teach-in last year, tremendous progress has been made in publicizing the now-indisputable fact that the 9/11 Commission Report was a massive whitewash. David Griffinâ€™s book The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions has conclusively proven that the Kean-Zelikow report is, as Griffin puts it, â€œa 567-page lie,â€ and that the most plausible motive for the reportâ€™s demonstrably preposterous lies was an effort to cover up â€œhigh crimes in the highest places.â€ Harperâ€™s magazine, in its cover story â€œWhitewashâ€ last fall, made the same point, and a growing list of academics, historians, and ex-top US officials have openly charged the Bush administration with 9/11 treason. The Bush Administrationâ€™s top economist in the Department of Labor, Morgan Reynolds, resigned last year and wrote a blistering article marshalling the evidence that the three World Trade Center buildings were destroyed in controlled demolitions with explosives in an â€œinside-jobâ€ scenario. Reynoldsâ€™ charges were supported by Paul Craig Roberts, a former high-level Reagan Administration official who is listed by Whoâ€™s Who as one of Americaâ€™s 200 most influential political thinkers. And former high-level CIA official Ray McGovernâ€”who, like Reynolds and Roberts, is a Republicanâ€”also finally â€œcame outâ€ as a 9/11 truth supporter, crediting his conversion to David Griffinâ€™s books.

In a development that is especially pleasing to MUJCA-NET, which was founded by Muslims in an attempt to reach out to Christians and especially Jews, a growing number of prominent Jewish Americans have been willing to publicly speak out on 9/11 truth. Rabbi Michael Lerner, an early endorser of the 9/11 truth movement, has agreed to contribute an essay to the forthcoming book 9/11 and the American Empire: Jews, Christians and Muslims Speak Out. That book, to be published next year by Interlink, will be co-edited by the celebrated Christian theologian John Cobb, Jewish scholar Sandra Lubarsky, and Muslim MUJCA-NET co-founder Kevin Barrett.

9/11 and the American Empire will borrow its title from David Griffinâ€™s April 18th 2004 speech at U.W.-Madison, which was broadcast nationwide on C-Span and has gone on to join Jimmy Walterâ€™s Confronting the Evidence as one of the two biggest 9/11 truth DVDs in worldwide distribution. (Griffinâ€™s talk, sponsored by MUJCA-NET, brought the packed room of 450 people to their feet in a protracted standing ovation; if you missed it, DVDs will be available at a huge discount at the Teach-In.)

This yearâ€™s 9/11 Truth Teach-In will also link 9/11 to the related issues of skyrocketing energy prices and the New Orleans disaster, arguing that 9/11 truth is quite literally the only thing that can save the world from the coming â€œlong emergencyâ€ (James Kunstler) of peak oil and climate change. 9/11 doubled the military budget and launched â€œthe war that will not end in our lifetimes.â€ Yet that war must endâ€”NOWâ€”and the Pentagon budget must be radically reduced, so that all available resources can be focused on meeting the environmental-energy challenge. We need to bring our troops home, disband most of our military and start protecting our coastal cities, developing energy alternatives, rebuilding our railroads and planning for $10-a-gallon gasoline NOW. There is only one way to generate the political will to do this: Discredit imperialism and militarism by showing that it was our own High Command that murdered almost 3,000 Americans to double its budget and launch its coveted wars on 9/11/01.